


Milk of Passivity, Milk of Aggression

by Sorcyress



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-28
Updated: 2011-12-28
Packaged: 2017-10-28 07:43:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/305493
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sorcyress/pseuds/Sorcyress
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just another quiet afternoon in the Lalonde household.</p><p>Set pre-game.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Milk of Passivity, Milk of Aggression

**Author's Note:**

  * For [odditycollector](https://archiveofourown.org/users/odditycollector/gifts).



> For the Ladystuck challenge. Yay ladies! Yay Homestuck!

The afternoon began with spilt milk.

Rose had been walking to the living room, a glass of milk in one hand, a plate of cookies in the other. Her mother had requested her presence for the next episode of that terrible show Wizards Everywhere!, just like she had the week before that, and the week before that. On her way to the television, holding the snack that would make the torment the slightest fraction more bearable, Jasper leapt out in front of Rose and startled her. She jumped, and sloshed milk down the front of her lavender t-shirt and onto the floor.

"Just a moment, mother." Rose called, and carefully set down the half-empty glass of milk and plate of cookies. She walked sedately up to her room so that she could change her shirt, then returned to the kitchen to mop up the mess she'd made. But it was no longer there.

Taking her cookies and remaining milk, Rose wandered into the living room. "Hello dear." her mother said airily from her perch on the couch, a martini glass dangling from one perfectly-manicured hand. "I took the liberty of mopping up the mess you made. Wouldn't want the kitchen looking a wreck, now would we?"

Rose's eyes narrowed slightly. Although she was young (currently almost thirteen), she had always been a precocious child, especially in the ways of passive aggression. After all, she had been raised to them, her life with her mother a careful balancing act of thinking before you spoke, so you knew the words couldn't be parsed any way other than you intended them.

"Thank you mother." she said, dulcet tones failing to mask the trace of venom in her words. "I would have done it. After all, I don't want you to miss any of your precious...show."

Now it was the elder Lalonde's turn to narrow her eyes. The woman looked down on her daughter, a smile frozen on lips coloured pale pink with a very expensive shade of lipstick. She didn't know where the poor girl had gotten her sharp tongue. She tried so hard to keep the house nice, keep Rose happy. Certainly, the other mothers had laughed when her daughter was young, laughed at how the poor single mother just _doted_ on the only family she had. "The girl will turn out spoiled" they said, and well, perhaps they had been right.

But then the commercials were over and oh, this was such a lovely programme. Rose had found it a year or so ago, a cartoon romp through the world of magic, and at first, Mom Lalonde had watched it to make sure it would be appropriate for her young daughter. That excuse lasted until one day when Rose had an afterschool field trip with the school, and hadn't been home to watch it as well. Her innocent mother had turned on the show anyways, and from then on, it was a ritual. A way for the two of them to bond, a chance to be close even though so often it seemed like Rose insisted on pulling away.

"How are your friends doing? The ones you talk to through your computer?" It was another commercial break, and rather than suffer through 'zany' antics of cereal mascots and carefully gender-segregated images of toys, Mom muted the television and turned to her daughter.

"They are quite legitimate, despite being in different parts of the world." Rose said haughtily. "I found out today that Dave and Jade have birthdays near mine." Her tone softened suddenly. "Please may I send them presents? Please mom?"

"Well, of course! What do they like? We could go get them some DVDs of Wizards Everywhere!, wouldn't that be fun?" You could watch it at the same time as them."

"I think I'd rather get them something they're actually interested in." Rose was scowling despite herself. Why did her mother have to be so...so obsessive about that uninspired journey through magical myth and legend. Her friends didn't need to know anything about it. "I need more cookies." she declared suddenly, and scooted off the couch so she could abscond to the kitchen. A moment later, she heard the sound come back on the television, and her mother's high pitched giggle --clearly the wizards had returned to captivate the old lush.

There on the counter, right next to the sink, was the dishcloth her mother must have used to clean up the milk. Rose had a sudden idea, a way in which she could one-up her mother, and she swiped it off the counter with a smirk. She would wash it, by hand, and fold it up neatly once it had dried. Already, the cogs of her mind were turning as they tried to determine exactly what to say in the note she left. It would serve her mother right to be so passive aggressive about keeping the house spotless -as usual.

After the programme had finished, Mom Lalonde wandered through the kitchen. This was partly to figure out what to serve for dinner, but mostly because her martini had run out fifteen minutes ago, and she was rather interested in finding another one. She set one hand on the counter to keep balance as she stretched up to the top of the cabinet where she kept the vermouth --codswillit, were they out again?-- and was startled to find something crinkling under her hand.

It was a note, pinned carefully to the fluffy pink dishcloth that had been covered with milk. It read:

> Mother  
> I have made sure to wash the dishcloth, being careful to use only the gentlest of our detergents, and air dry it outside in the breeze to ensure its tensile strength is not damaged by the clothing dryer. I hope you find is cleaned and folded to your satisfaction.  
> Your loving daughter  
> Rose Lalonde

The note had been written in script-perfect cursive, and she smiled as she read it. Despite the occasional argument they seemed to get in (and Ms. Lalonde suspected nervously that it would only get worse as her daughter blossomed into teenagerdom and the requisite hormones of puberty) Rose had really grown up to be such a lovely and helpful child. She wrote that last bit at the bottom of the note --"thank you for being so helpful, you are a lovely child. Would you like to go out somewhere nice for dinner, to celebrate how charming a young woman you are becoming?"

Then she put the dishcloth away in its drawer, and went upstairs to slip the note under Rose's door. She would just have to get a martini at the restaurant --in fact, she knew the **perfect** place to go.

She was swanning back down the stairs when she heard a scream, through gritted teeth. Goodness, what _had_ gotten into Rose now?

 _Fin_

**Author's Note:**

> I really hope you like it. Life got a little frantic this last week or so, and I didn't get as much polishing time as I would've hoped. But I loved the prompt of Rose and Mom having a passive-aggressive battle with each other. So perfect!


End file.
